Rapper Shawty Lo says he provides for all his ‘baby mamas’

Young Shawty backstage at Magnum Live Large Project at Phillips Arena on June 19, 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for Trojan)

Rapper Shawty Lo has been in the news recently, more for his extraordinary family condition than for the music that made him a big name in the music game.

Even before it debuts, his upcoming Oxygen reality show All My Babies’ Mamas has received serious backlash for its portrayal of the black family and its celebration of the “baby mama.”

Shawty Lo has declined to publicly discuss the upcoming Oxygen show, including a request from theGrio, but in an interview with MTV News’ Rob Markman, Lo talked about his role as a father of 11 children by ten different women.

“You can hate all you want to, I didn’t ask for it,” Lo said. “It just happened. Now that it happened, I’m supposed to turn my back against it? If I wasn’t taking care of my kids then you would really dog me out, but I’m taking care of my kids, providing for my family. I don’t know what else to say.”

Shawty Lo makes it clear that he makes it a priority to raise his own children and support his family because when he was growing up he didn’t have any family there for him. His mother was hooked on drugs and his father was nowhere to be found.

“I came to be one of the largest drug dealers to come from Atlanta, Bankhead area, and I started havin’ kids. When the money came, a lot of women came,” Shawty Lo said. “Once you feel like a girl was your girlfriend or whatever, the rubber probably came off. They wouldn’t have an abortion. They used to take the money and run with it, and they’d have a baby by the most popular guy in the street, and that’s how I had all them kids.”

“I take care of all my kids. … Outta all the 10 baby mamas, I just have problems outta one. That’s it,” he said. “She has two kids by me, and she feel like I’m supposed to do more for her kids, and she don’t wanna work. She just want me to straight take care of them, but it’s all love. I handle it.”

Shawty Lo says no matter what, he won’t turn his back on his family and it’s important for all fathers to spend time with their children.

“Even if you ain’t got the money, you gotta be a father to your child. You need to be in your child’s life, ’cause that means a lot to them,” he said. “Comin’ up, we didn’t have Thanksgiving, we didn’t have Christmas, but if I had my father there, if I even had my mother there, I probably wouldn’t have been that person I was in the streets.”